Jack Templar and the Lord of the Werewolves (Book #4 of the Templar Chronicles)

by Jeff Gunhus

  Daniel gave me a slight nod, acknowledging that he appreciated me sticking up for him.

  Bocho looked uncertain what to do but finally threw his hands up in the air. “I liked it better when I could boss you all around,” he grumbled. “Come on, then. This way.” He trudged off toward a small barn set away from the farmhouse.

  “Uhh… I think you guys have this, right?” T-Rex said, eyeing the main house. “I can smell the dinner in there. Rabbit stew?” he asked Bocho.

  This brightened the big man’s face. “Yes, one of my best I think. The vegetables came right from the garden this morning.”

  Will licked his lips, and I noticed Xavier looking at the house too. While they felt obligated to come with us to see Aquinas, I knew what they really wanted to do.

  “Why don’t you guys go get some grub,” I suggested. “That way Bocho doesn’t get into too much trouble for letting all of us come.”

  “If it would help Bocho,” T-Rex said.

  “Yeah,” Will agreed. “Might be better that way, right?”

  Xavier studied the other two. “Am I supposed to pretend to want to come too, or can I just say I want to go eat?” he said.

  Will looked embarrassed but I just laughed. “Go on, save us a plate.”

  The three of them turned. Kelsey and Emmy, the two sisters who’d found them, were waiting to show the visitors inside. I turned back to see Bocho studying Eva intently.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go see if Aquinas can help.”

  The barn was a sturdy structure with a stone base and walls of rough-cut, weathered boards likely taken from the surrounding forest before chainsaws were even invented. I was certain it had seen over a hundred harsh mountain winters, maybe even two hundred, and yet it still stood defiantly in its spot, giving every indication that it would be there for an hundred more. In this way, it was like the person inside of it waiting for our arrival.

  The door creaked open and revealed an interior very similar to Aquinas’s workshop in the Tree of Life back at the Monster Hunter Academy. The open floor was divided into sections with furniture serving as the boundaries between areas. A mini-laboratory filled one area with tables covered with beakers and flasks. Glass tubing percolated with glowing fluids.

  Another area was set up with her library, a replacement for the ancient books destroyed when the Tree of Life at the Academy had burned to the ground. The third area contained couches and chairs arranged where she could host groups large or small with just a few shifts. It told me that even in hiding, Aquinas was not letting the younger hunters get out of their lessons.

  There were windows high up on the walls where a second floor would have been if the barn had a loft inside instead of open beams. The lowering afternoon sun lit up windows on the west side. Shafts of light pierced through the barn interior like pillars helping to hold up the roof.

  One of these shafts spotlighted a leather chair in the middle of the teaching area. Aquinas waited for us there, propped up on cushions, watching us. She rose slowly when we came in, and I noticed how much older she seemed since I’d last seen her.

  It wasn’t only her grey hair that seemed to float behind her because it was so thin or that her face was as wrinkled as an apple core left out for days in the sun, it was the way her every movement seemed to cause her pain. I felt a pang of guilt recalling the way she had saved my life by covering me with her shield during the goblin army’s attack. She’d left herself exposed and paid for it with a goblin arrow in her shoulder. The wound that still gave her so much trouble from the arrow had been meant for my body, not hers. I crossed quickly to her so she wouldn’t try to walk toward us.

  “Well, well,” she said, her voice sounding weaker than I remembered. “Looks like our super-secret hideout isn’t as secure as I hoped.”

  I pointed to Daniel who stood a few paces behind me, his shock at seeing Aquinas in this fragile state clear on his face. “Daniel did it all. I doubt the Creach have anyone with his skill.”

  Aquinas raised the cane she used for balance and pointed it at him. “If anyone could find us, it would be you. What was it? A hunter with loose lips? Some kind of pattern when we made the journey here?”

  “The medicine you purchased,” Daniel said in a low voice. “I recognized the materials you’ve sent me to villages to get for you before.”

  Aquinas shook her head. “Such a small thing. Well done. Well done, indeed.” She coughed and winced from the pain. Bocho rushed to her side and lowered her back into the chair. Daniel and I exchanged worried glances.

  “And now you both wonder whether I’ve bothered to take any of those medicines I bought?”

  Daniel looked at the ground. “No… I…”

  “I may be injured and sick, but my eyes still work well enough, I’ll tell you that,” Aquinas grumbled. Her eyes looked past us and sought out Eva, who remained in a shadow next to the door where we entered. “It seems I’m not the only one who carries an injury.” She waved her hand, beckoning Eva to come closer. “Come here, child.”

  Eva didn’t move.

  Aquinas closed her eyes and lifted her head slightly, giving the impression of someone trying to catch a smell in the air or listen for a distant sound. Suddenly, Eva jerked backward and slammed her body against the barn wall hard enough that dust shook from the rafters above us. The columns of light took on new definition as dust motes danced through the air. I looked at Eva, worried. But she stood perfectly still. When I looked back at Aquinas, her eyes were open and they bore right into me.

  “Tell me what happened,” she demanded. “Leave out no detail, no matter how small or inconsequential you might think it may be. Tell me everything if you want to save her life.”

  Chapter 5

  Telling the story to Aquinas in minute detail felt like reliving the horror all over again. When I described to her the decision I’d had to make as Eva lay bleeding to death on my lap, tears ran down my face. Saying it aloud, knowing Eva was listening to my every word, was one of the hardest things I ever did.

  When I finished, I couldn’t look Aquinas in the eye, choosing instead to stare at a spot on the ground in front of my feet. I wished a hole would open in the earth right there and swallow me whole. It would have been better than standing in that barn with Eva, Daniel, Bocho, and Aquinas staring at me, judging me.

  The Templar ring I wore on my right hand grew warm at the thought about the hole in the ground. I remembered the ring had caused things to happen when I’d wished hard enough for them before, so I quickly cleared my mind of the image.

  I flinched when Aquinas put her hand on my arm. I hadn’t even noticed her stand up from her chair. She whispered the only words she could have said to make me feel worse than I already did.

  “It is one of the great mysteries of life why we most harm those we most love.” She gripped my arm. “But a mistake made from love is still a mistake. You should have let her die with her honor.”

  I started to reply, but I didn’t know what to say. In fact, there was nothing to say. The act was done. Telling Aquinas I thought she was wrong and that I still didn’t regret what I’d done served no purpose. Eva was not dead. So she wasn’t quite alive, but at least she wasn’t dead. I knew that given the chance to redo it all, I would make the same decision again.

  “Can you help her?” I managed.

  “I don’t know. Leave us so I can see what can be done about it… if anything.”

  Daniel and Bocho protested this idea, saying it wasn’t safe to leave Aquinas alone with Eva. I have to admit I had the same worry. But the old master shot us a look we’d seen before. She’d made up her mind, and there was no changing it.

  Finally, we all trudged out of the barn, the three of us leaning up against the door the second it closed to listen for any signs of a struggle inside. But the minutes passed without event, and finally we walked to the main house and began our long wait.

  That was over three hours ago. The sun that had lit the countryside so br
ightly now drenched it in reds and oranges as it set behind the mountains to the west. Lanterns were being lit around the property, and a large campfire was being built in the rear of the house where the young hunters straggled in. T-Rex and Will were there, talking to some of the hunters they knew from the Academy. They knew I wanted to be left alone with my own thoughts for a while.

  I should have been famished, but I couldn’t do much more than push the food around my plate, only taking a bite when Bocho came over to ask how I liked his rabbit stew. The truth was, even the one bite I did take made me nauseous. I almost lost it right there at the table. It was nothing to do with the food. In fact, Bocho was a master with a rabbit, some vegetables, spices, and a pot, but my stomach just couldn’t take it.

  I carried my plate to the trash and secretly scooped the stew out in case Bocho was watching. It was getting late, and I was desperate to know what was going on inside that barn, so I headed back that direction. To my surprise, I saw Aquinas standing at one of the pasture fences near the barn. She was by herself except for Saladin who stood with his massive head over the top of the fence accepting the old master stroking his nose. I jogged out to her.

  As I approached, Saladin whinnied in greeting and stamped the ground with his right front leg. Aquinas turned, pretending to have just noticed me. I knew better than that. Even sick and injured, I was certain she’d been tracking my movements since the second I left the main house.

  “How is Eva?” I asked.

  “She’s dead,” Aquinas said matter-of-factly.

  I stopped in my tracks and felt my throat clench. I suddenly couldn’t breathe. “B-but… wh-what…” I couldn’t get the words out.

  “No, not the way you’re thinking,” Aquinas said. “Although it would be no small mercy to put the poor girl out of her misery.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What’s not to understand?” Aquinas snapped. “Eva the monster hunter is dead. We’re left with Eva the vampire, a creature not quite dead but not fully alive either.”

  I breathed a little easier, understanding now that Eva was still safe. “You weren’t able to do anything for her?”

  Aquinas shook her head and fell silent for a long time. I had the sense that she was angry with me, so I waited, knowing better than to pepper her with questions. Finally, she said, “The blood in her is strong.”

  “You’ve seen this blood before,” I said. “In Gregor.”

  Aquinas flinched. I wondered if she suspected how much I knew. “So you met the old fool,” she said.

  “I watched him die,” I said.

  She didn’t react at all, and that said more than anything. She was holding herself in such complete control against emotion that it was almost hard to watch.

  “Did he die well?”

  “He died a hunter of the Black Guard,” I replied. “Battling the Creach to cover our escape. Without him we wouldn’t have found the Lord of the Vampires and recovered the Jerusalem Stone.”

  I pulled the stone from my jacket pocket. It was nondescript, no different than a river stone, a little smaller than a tennis ball. Looking at it, I had a hard time imagining it held incredible power.

  “I’d like you to hold it for me,” I said, handing it to her.

  Aquinas cradled it in her hands for a moment and then slid it into a hidden pocket in her clothing.

  “He was a good hunter,” she said.

  “He was a vampire with Shakra’s blood in his veins. The same blood flowing through Eva’s right now,” I said. “How did he do it? How did he control it?”

  Aquinas reached out to Saladin, and the horse nuzzled into her chest as if feeling her troubled thoughts.

  “Gregor was strong. A leader of men even before he was turned.”

  “You know Eva is just as strong,” I said. “As a child she sawed off her own hand to escape Ren Lucre’s prison so she could avenge her family. She’s braver than any other hunter we have. How can you –”

  “Don’t you think I know all that?” Aquinas raged, her eyes bright with anger. “You dare to lecture me? I raised her. Trained her to become the weapon she is. I know her ten times better than you.”

  “Then you know how powerful she can be,” I begged.

  Her face softened as she saw the pain in mine. “But don’t you see? I know exactly how powerful she can be, and that’s exactly what makes her so dangerous.”

  “But she –”

  “She could destroy this entire camp if she chose,” Aquinas said. “Or at least most of it before one of the hunters got a lucky shot on her from a distance. We wouldn’t be able to stop her.”

  “She would never –”

  “Eva of the Black Guard would never harm us,” Aquinas whispered. “But Eva the vampire may not be able to control what she does.”

  She looked away, and the next words she said were barely audible. “And that’s why she must be destroyed.”

  Chapter 6

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. For a second I assumed Aquinas had spoken so softly that I’d misunderstood her. But when she turned to look at me, I could see I’d heard just fine.

  “You can’t mean that,” I said.

  “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, Jack. You know this.”

  “There has to be another way. Gregor is proof –”

  “Gregor was one out of thousands. Do you really think Eva is the first to be transformed? Sometimes it happens in battle. Sometimes the draw of immortality is too strong for a hunter to resist as they age. I’d be lying if I said I had not been tempted myself.”

  “With Gregor?” I guessed, recalling how the old vampire had spoken of Aquinas with fondness, and his comments about her youthful beauty.

  Aquinas looked surprised, but she nodded. “Yes, he tried to convince me I could control it the way he had. With time and hard work. Using certain techniques. He tried to persuade me to use the gift to do good and fight against the Creach using their own powers.”

  “What stopped you?” I asked.

  “Fear, I suppose,” Aquinas said but then shook her head. “No, you know that’s not true. It wasn’t fear; it was jealousy. I knew that Gregor burned inside to exact his revenge against Shakra for what she’d done to him. But I also knew he still loved her in a way he would never love me. I was young, and that hurt me like I’d never been hurt before. I couldn’t imagine living an eternity with that pain.”

  “But you thought you could control it,” I said excitedly. “That wasn’t the reason why you didn’t do it. Gregor must have convinced you he knew how to teach you to control it.”

  Aquinas looked off to the horizon where the sun’s last glow painted the mountain peaks in rich colors. She seemed lost in a memory, and I stood silently for as long a time as I could to let her relive it. Finally, I spoke up.

  “If the roles were reversed, Eva would do anything, try anything, take any risk to save either of us,” I said. “You know that.”

  Aquinas nodded. “Because she can be a fool about such things.”

  “You taught her. You said so yourself,” I offered.

  Aquinas laughed softly. “And sometimes the teacher is reminded of her lesson by the student.”

  “So you’ll try?” I asked.

  She drew in a deep breath, held it, then slowly let it out. “Yes, I’ll try.” She held up a hand. “But I will do it my way, without interference.”

  “All right.”

  “And if I think I’m losing control, and she’s a risk, then I’ll do what must be done.”

  I stared at her, unwilling to agree. “Shakra told me that the five Jerusalem Stones united could save her. Turn her back into… into…”

  “A human,” Aquinas stated plainly.

  “Back into herself,” I said. “So, while you work with her here, I’ll continue my search for the Stones.”

  Aquinas nodded. “The quest remains the same even if the reasons for it have changed. We’ve heard there is fighting among
the Creach, a battle for power amongst themselves. The rumor is that the Lord of the Lesser Creach has defeated the Lord of the Zombies. That means there can be two Jerusalem Stones in one place, only we have little information on where they are hiding.”

  “That will be useful eventually,” I said, excited by the idea of two stones being in one spot. “But Shakra told me how I can find Kaeden, the Lord of the Werewolves.”

  Aquinas frowned. “I thought you might save him for later. Kaeden will not part easily with his Stone.”

  “I have to get them all eventually, so it doesn’t matter the order,” I argued.

  “Shakra told you where to find him? I’m surprised she knew. The Lords are cautious, wary of each other as much as they are of humans.”

  “She didn’t exactly tell me where he was, just where I could go to find out.” I explained to Aquinas what Shakra had told me. She didn’t bother to hide her disapproval of my plan, but she didn’t try to persuade me against it. We both had what we wanted. I’d gotten Aquinas’s commitment not to give up on Eva and bought myself some time to collect the other Stones. Aquinas had gotten me back on track for my quest to find the Stones as quickly as possible.

  She held out her arm, and I took it to steady her as she walked toward the main house.

  “We have struck a fair bargain,” Aquinas said, making sure I understood that she realized we’d each used each other for our own ends. “Let us wish success on both of our endeavors.”

  I looked down and saw that she held out at metal cylinder in her hand. The truthsayer. A powerful relic from my last adventure, it had the power to tell whether someone was speaking the truth. Well, at least the truth according to the person you were asking. It was a good reminder of how different experiences and points of view could create different forms of the truth. It was a powerful tool, but a dangerous one. I’d given both the truthsayer and the Jerusalem Stone I’d recovered to Aquinas for safekeeping, and now she was giving it back.

  “You might need this along the way,” she said.